The Fast and the Furious

Edit 0 11 …

The Fast and The Furious

State Standards:

GSE PS3 (7-8)-8 - Motion

Students demonstrate an understanding of motion by…
  • 8a measuring distance and time for a moving object and using those values as well as the relationship s=d/t to calculate speed and graphically represent the data.

National Standards:

Context of Lesson:

This lesson builds off of the first lesson of this unit on describing motion in terms of a frame of reference and a change in position. This lesson builds on distance and displacement from the previous lesson and allows students to measure motion in terms of speed. First, students will read about speed and fill in a graphic organizer to visually represent the concept. After that, students will use toy cars to measure speed. That will give students a hands on experience to remember how to measure speed rather than just memorizing the formula. This lesson is important for the students to master prior to the lab activity that will follow in the next three days. This lab will reinforce the concept of speed and allow students to build on their knowledge to apply their understanding in multiple ways.

Opportunities to Learn:

Depth of Knowledge

Webb Level one:
  • Recall elements and details
  • Conduct basic mathematical calculations
  • Label locations on a map
  • Represent in words or diagrams a scientific concept or relationship
  • Perform routine Procedures like measuring length
Webb Level Two:
  • Identify and summarize
  • Solve routine multiple-step problems
  • Identify Patterns in events
  • Organize, represent and interpret data
Webb Level Three:
  • Support ideas with details and examples


Prerequisite Knowledge

  • How to calculate distance
  • Basic algebraic skills

Plans for Differentiating Instruction

The concepts in this lesson are presented in multiple ways to accommodate different learning styles. Students will have the opportunity to:
  • Work in groups for distributed cognition
  • View the topic in a literary manner (Reading)
  • Organize the ideas they read in a graphic organizer (Visual representations)
  • Manipulate objects to apply knowledge and gain hands-on experience (Kinesthetic learning)

Accommodations and modifications

  • The graphic organizer will be partially filled out for those students that require modifications.
  • Extra assistance will be provided for those that need verbal cues.

Environmental factors

  • Opening assignment will be on the bored as students come in the classroom so they can begin right away.
  • The day's outline will be on the board prior to the start of class.
  • The class is arranged in a circle for reading and whole class instruction. This creates an open type of environment to facilitate sharing and include everyone in the whole group.
  • Student will be allowed to move about the room in their groups (Predetermined to distribute cognition. Low level learners with upper mid-level learners and High level learners with low mid-level learners.)

Materials


Objectives:

Students will conduct investigations to:
  • calculate speed and distance using equations
Students will build explanations to:
  • explain speed in terms of distance and time

Instruction:

Opening:

  • The opening warm up today will be a quiz from the previous night's homework. It will be projected on the wall as students enter the class.
  • Give students ten minutes to finish up the quiz.
Segue:
  • Brief review of last class
  • Go over today's activities. Previously written on the board.
  • "How is the speed of the race cars in the Indie 500 determined?"
  • "How Does the speedometer measure speed?"
  • Brainstorm ideas on the board.
  • "How fast do those cars go?" Discuss- What do I mean when I say 'fast'? Fast is an ambiguous term and depends on what it is relative to.
  • "Why is it beneficial to learn about speed?" Discuss- When we think of speed, we automatically think fast, but speed doesn't always mean that something is moving fast. In today's lesson, we are going to learn how to think about speed in terms of motion.

Engagement:

Activity One: 15 min
  • Instruct students to open book to pp. 302 (read to page 306)
  • Hand out Graphic Organizer
  • Read paragraph one to model graphic organizer
  • Students then read the following paragraphs.Students take turns reading aloud
  • Teacher interrupts to model thinking.
  • Students are given a few minutes to complete Graphic organizers after reading.
  • Teacher walks around the room to informally assess student's understanding. Teacher looks for graphic organizer completion and relative correctness.
Activity Two:
  • Students are broken up into predetermined groups of 3 or 4 students.
  • Students given lab handout.
  • Teacher goes over lab instructions:
    • You will record the time and distance at three separate points along the car's track. Students will be positioned at different stations to record the time from start to their position. The distance will be measured between each position.
    • You will perform three trials - "Why do we do multiple trials?" Try to keep a similar velocity by pushing the car the same each time. You may to more than three trials if necessary, and pick the three with the most similar numbers.
    • If you do not finish the calculations, you may do them for homework (Modeled by teacher)
  • Direct students to varies stations around the room where they are given a meter stick, a stop watch and a toy car.
  • Teacher walks around while students perform lab activity. Teacher looks for participation and task completion.
Closure:
  • Wrap up class with five minutes remaining
  • "How can we get more reliable results from out lab?" "What makes it not reliable?"
  • Discuss activity: "If I were to ask you to describe how an object is moving, what would you tell me?"
  • If the calculations and questions on the lab handout are not complete, they are to be done for homework.

Assessment:

  • Formative assessment of completion of graphic organizer
  • Quiz
  • Lab activity

Back to Lesson Sequence